Don Young: “I reluctantly oppose this motion to instruct the conferees. It is a beautifully drafted, I thought, solution to a…”

“I reluctantly oppose this motion to instruct the conferees. It is a beautifully drafted, I thought, solution to a problem. But I will tell you after reviewing it that if we go to 92 percent and we insist that they be no less than what is in H.R. 3, there will be a problem of having a higher number in de facto. I think we can get there. I just do not think we ought to be instructing the conferees and having the illusion of actually going above to what we vote with 417 votes for in this House. I will urge the gentleman to consider that as we go to conference that I will do everything in my power to get more money. I think what we ought to be concentrating on is, that yesterday was the seventh extension that we had on this legislation. It is not this body's fault. It is not the House and the people's fault. It is the other side who decided not to finish this product. Yes, we just got the papers today, before we go on this short recess so it has hamstrung us. I want us to get to conference. I want the conferees to be nominated today. I want us to get the staffs working together to solve this problem. Try to get more money than was there, but sticking with the number of House-passed so that we finally get some stability within the States. Everything the gentleman said about traffic is absolutely right: it has got worse in the last 4 years. We have seen a tremendous increase of automobile and trade traffic, and we are not addressing that issue as we should be.…”